Business Insight: Through analysis of real-time order volume data we found that supply & demand were highly localized and varied significantly at any one time among restaurants.

Consumer Insight: Hungry consumers left waiting are unforgiving.

If we serve a food delivery ad to a consumer but are not able to fulfill the order within a reasonable time, or worse, not able to deliver at all, we leave the consumer angry and frustrated,. The food delivery options now available at the touch of a button means consumer loyalty is a thing of the past – let them down and we risk never getting their business again.

Our solution needed to align advertising to actual demand and supply levels at a hyper-local level, shifting spends from low capacity areas to high capacity ones. Our messaging also needed to set realistic expectations of wait time to our consumers upfront.

We focused our attention on a new use of paid search as it consistently delivered maximum ROI for McDelivery. Partnering with Google, we developed a global first for any brand in any category - mapping real-time restaurant-level data against paid search messaging and spends via a live API.

How did we make this a reality?

1. We divided Singapore into more than 25 neighbourhoods using Google’s hyper-local targeting capability.

2. We set up a real-time data feed (API) into McDonald’s nation-wide delivery management system to access customer delivery wait time by neighbourhood every 5 minutes.

3. Using a custom-built coding script, neighbourhoods were then categorised as high, medium or low capacity in real time as demand fluctuated.

4. We established a set of capacity-based media activation rules in Google Adwords that would determine how aggressive spends would be in that neighbourhood and what messages would be served – all optimised in real-time. If capacity went up so did search spend levels and the creative celebrated a lower wait time. If capacity went down search spend levels dropped. Ads were paused altogether in neighbourhoods that were not able to deliver due to high demand.

The campaign was a huge success, delivering incremental growth from an existing leadership position.

1. More cost efficient delivery orders. 58% increase in average monthly ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) in Sep/Oct 2016 vs. target of 10%.

2. Increased demand for delivery to restaurants that could accommodate additional demand. 9% increase in monthly delivery revenue in Sep/Oct 2016 attributed to SEM vs. target of 2%.

The Singapore success story is now serving as a template for real-time data-driven marketing globally within McDonald’s.

“This was a truly innovative first in McDonald’s which has already yielded directionally strong business and media results. We’re extremely excited by the potential scalability to this work to drive incremental business growth in more markets around the world.” -- Silas Lewis-Meilus, Global Head of Media, McDonald’s

“The pilot has been successful and we are planning to roll this out in more markets.” – Silvia Lagnado, Global CMO, McDonald’s